[I] asked people to quantify themselves on a scale of one to 100 percent gay, and I watched so many existential crises unfold in front of me. People didn't know what to do, because they had never been presented with the option before.

Quotation #17442

About This Quote

Source:
"Fifty Shades of Gay." TEDxWomen 2012. Dec. 2012. Conference Presentation.
Additional Information:
This quote by artist iO Tillett Wright is from her 2012 TED Talk on a project she undertook to give a voice to people of the LGBTQ (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer) community. The quote is about a survey Wright gave to 2,000 people whom she took portraits of, and whom identified as falling somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum. When Wright asked her subjects to assign a numerical value to how "gay" they felt, they didn't know how to answer the question, simply because no one had ever asked them such a question before. Wright goes on to say that she found that most people did not identify as 100 percent straight or gay, but as being somewhere in between.
Watch the full TED Talk here: iO Tillet Wright - Fifty Shades of Gay